Israel Is Using Humanitarian Aid as a Strategic Weapon in Gaza, Without a Strategy - Israel News - Haaretz.com
There is practically no war zone anywhere in the world where humanitarian aid has not been turned into a strategic tool for the conduct of the fighting, and often even prolongs it. The Gaza war is no exception to this rule. Israel understands that the food and medicine convoys, and supplies of water and fuel are what allow it to continue the war. In other words, without the strategic advantages it brings, humanitarian aid has no value of its own.
The paradox is that aid intended to save human life is critical for Israel to continue to kill people, enemies and "non-combatants." But Israel didn't invent the wheel, the U.S. government is the one that has dictated the rules.
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This is both in order to alleviate pressure from the international community as it backs Israel in the United Nations Security Council and the International Court of Justice, and in order to counter domestic criticism, not only from Republicans but also from Democrats who see Biden's support for continuing the fighting as a political disaster.
A boy stands near a destroyed building from an Israeli strike in Rafah, southern Gaza, on Sunday. There is no local government in Gaza to undertake the task of delivering aid to citizens, nor is any international, Arab or Palestinian power willing to shoulder the burden.Credit: Said Khatib/AFP
A secondary claim is that the aid that enters Gaza ends up in the hands of Hamas and strengthens its political position in the enclave. Hamas exploits aid to determine the rules of the game in the hostage talks, as well as to assuage Palestinian public opinion. But as usual, in the debate between those who oppose continued aid and those who want it to increase, the Gazans continue to die of hunger and disease as well as in shootings and bombings.
Humanitarian aid is not only measured by the total deliveries, the number of trucks and the amount of money allocated to pay for it all. It requires protected access roads, transit corridors and safe areas based on agreements and understandings among the warring parties. These agreements, however, are not given away for free. The sides exact a price in political, military, tactical or strategic assets that will allow them to continue the war.
Here, too, Gaza is no different. One of the most tragic and disgraceful examples of the use of humanitarian aid as a strategic tool – and it is by no means the only one – occurred during the war in Yugoslavia. A shocking 1999 report by Mark Cutts for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in 1999 laid out a string of serious failures by the UN peacekeeping forces and the High Commissioner deployed in Bosnia to deliver the aid.
Cutts, who has been engaged in humanitarian work for decades and was, among other things, the coordinator for humanitarian relief in Syria, described in his report how Serbian forces in Bosnia raided food and medicine convoys destined for the Bosnian population and demanded that aid be distributed equally between the Serb attackers and their Bosnian victims. In at least one case, in 1995, hundreds of peacekeepers were kidnapped by Serbian forces after bombings carried out by NATO on Serb bases. They even used the captives as human shields to protect sites from being bombed.
In Syria, the Assad regime was the one that dictated the conditions for the entry of aid convoys, which included the demand that it be distributed by aid organizations affiliated with the regime. They, in turn, transferred an estimated half of all aid to Syrian fighters or to the militias operated by the regime. Over the course of the Syrian civil war, the U.S. provided some $16 billion in humanitarian aid to the country.
In light of the theft and manipulation, which added up to approximately $100 million in the years 2019-2020 alone, Congress demanded that the administration design a new strategy that would streamline the distribution and prevent it from reaching Assad. Such a strategy has yet to be devised.
Residents of Gaza City waiting for aid trucks, last week. The airdrops of food and medicine are not a real solution, and they are not enough to satisfy the enormous needs of the people in Gaza.Credit: Mahmoud Issa/Reuters
Gaza pales in comparison to the scale of the killing and the humanitarian disaster that devastated Syria. But the difference between Gaza and the situation that developed in Bosnia and Syria is that in these two countries, there was at least someone with whom to conduct the negotiations on the distribution of aid. Even after the Syrian regime or the Serbian forces in Bosnia took their share, a reasonable amount managed to reach its destination.
In Gaza, there is not only no local government, there is no international, Arab or Palestinian force to carry the burden. Israel refuses to let the Palestinian Authority enter Gaza to handle the distribution, but the PA also has its own political conditions for entering Gaza. Without the start of a diplomatic process, or at least the symbolic convening of an international conference to establish an agenda for one, the PA says it will have nothing to do with Gaza.
For its part, the United States has its own, onerous conditions for a PA role, demanding that it undertake political and administrative reforms. These include reducing the powers of PA President Mahmoud Abbas, the formation of a government of technocrats not identified with Hamas or Fatah (an unrealistic condition) and efforts to eradicate corruption.
It is worth recalling that similar conditions that would have enabled the humanitarian aid to reach those in need were not demanded of the regimes in Syria, Yemen or Sudan. The absurdity is that while Israel dictates the conditions for the entry of humanitarian aid into Gaza, Hamas and armed gangs continue to control how it is distributed once it gets there.
President of Syria Bashar Assad, last year. According to estimates, about half of all the aid shipments that entered Syria found their way to the warehouses of the Assad regime, or to the militias that work for it.Credit: Saudi Press Agency/Reuters
In the absence of any plan for governing civilian life and the distribution system of humanitarian aid, and in view of the disaster of the death of at least 112 Gaza residents in the horrific incident on Rashid Street and the "normal" chaos that accompanies the distribution of aid, Washington may soon have to let the PA into Gaza unconditionally.
The airdrops of food and medicine, which have been made by Jordan, the United Emirates and now the U.S., are not a real solution. Even if they reach their intended recipients, rather than landing in the Mediterranean or in Israeli territory, it would not satisfy anywhere near the need. The Hercules plane can drop a load equal in size to that of one truck. In order to meet the 200-trucks-a-day minimum, an airlift of unprecedented size would be required in a relatively small airspace and at a huge cost.
The other solution is to open the Erez and Karni crossings in addition to Kerem Shalom and Rafah. But even if all of them were opened, the problem of distribution would remain until roads can be secured with an effective army and police presence until convoys reach distribution points.
The Gaza police, who worked for Hamas, have refused to be responsible for the protection of the aid convoys out of fear for their lives. The same goes for aid workers, many of whom were killed in the war. The question that will soon arise is whether Israeli soldiers will become aid workers, not only guarding the aid convoys but handling its distribution. It is highly doubtful that this is the image of total victory Netanyahu is hoping for.